The Week In Japanese Wrestling: A Block booking mars tremendous NJPW G1

The following originally appeared in this week’s Figure Four Weekly.

What has been a tremendous G1 Climax was slightly marred this past weekend by some very disappointing booking in the A Block.

Coming into the tournament, it seemed pretty likely that the Kazuchika Okada vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi match on the final night of the block would be the match to decide who would get to the final. But, it would have been nice for some other scenarios to still be viable past July 31st.

But on the show in Gifu this past Sunday – the midway point of the tour – they completely killed everything else that could be intriguing in the Block, and all it took was three results to do it.

Tomohiro Ishii lost to Tama Tonga, stalling at four points and making him a non-player at this juncture. He had a huge match in Osaka today with Okada that was made a lot less interesting going into it. SANADA started the G1 with a huge career boosting win over Tanahashi, and everyone was ready for him to soar and be a key guy in the block. Since then, he’s gone 1-4, taking him out of play two weeks before we get to Sumo Hall.

The biggest disappointment of all is that his Sumo Hall opponent is also out of contention. Hiroyoshi Tenzan’s miracle run in his final G1 Climax was looking like the most exciting thing in the tournament after his 2-0 start and great performances. He’s lost four in a row since then and his loss to Kazuchika Okada in Gifu ended his chances, also taking away what many hoped would be one of the biggest moments of the tour with the legend veteran beating the champ.

The story is clear now. Tanahashi, who got off to a very slow start, is going to win out until we get to Sumo Hall. Okada is going to drop points in one of his matches and then it will all come down to their match. There is nothing at all wrong with that story, but it would have been nice if other matches in the last two weeks had meaning.

Thankfully, the B Block still has a lot of viable scenarios and there are many guys who could be players on finals night.

That Block also produced the show of the tournament at the weekend in Nagoya. The final four bouts of the show were all great with the main event being arguably the best match of the tour. Tetsuya Naito and Katsuyori Shibata had an easy story for their match. Shibata was mummified with his shoulder, collarbone and leg all taped up after several gruelling matches. Naito had attacked his leg on the prior show throughout their tag bout and put him in a leglock after the bell which he refused to break.

Shibata was coming for blood, but there was not a whole lot he could do due to the injuries. Naito taunted him throughout the match, slapped him around and toyed with him. It came back to bite him though as Shibata finally got his opportunity and took out Naito’s wheel in return. The last few minutes were classic as the two wrestlers scratched and clawed to get the win.

Shibata finally hit his PK but he didn’t go for the pin as normal. He wanted retribution and he grabbed Naito by the neck, sunk in a choke, and held it until the former IWGP champ passed out. Then, in a fitting touch, he kept it locked in after the bell right up until the point where he would have been DQ’d.